I am from Russia Georgia. I am an ultrasound technologist so I am related to so many boob stories. Me, I got pregnant when I was 17 and then I got married but I was like flat, no boobs at all. Suddenly when I got pregnant, they start growing and growing and growing and they became like triple D's. I just graduated from high school, and all my friends came to meet my daughter. She started crying so I pulled my boobs out to feed her. Everybody started starring, they all had big ones but suddenly they saw me, the flat one, with these humongous boobies out. “What happened?” they asked. In Russia, nobody was really educated and we didn’t know why this was happening. I was so happy because suddenly I had big big ones and I had so much milk with my first pregnancy, I even helped my neighbor feed her kid. I miss this period very much. The smell from the kids when they smell like the milk. It was a big excitement and for my husband too. He was enjoying.

"Bob and Rachel. These are the names of my boobs. Left is Bob. Right is Rachel. I figured I needed to have a relationship with these new-found things growing on my chest…so I named them. My favorite name was Bob. And Rachel sounded good with Bob."

Breasts are mysteries at first. In my case, the magic was in seeing Nana’s mastectomy scars when I was 12. They were all light purple and pastel pink by that point, right above the concaved skin where the breasts used to be. It was equal parts privilege and terror to be shown what was possible as I waited through my teenage years for my own breasts to develop. This late bloomer eventually had a wholly average and perfectly capable set of breasts, lovely even when swollen with breast milk or infected with mastitis. Now I recognize this rush to early knowledge placed trust that mammos and ultrasounds over the years would give me early detection too. But unlike the 3 generations of women before me in my family, I would not get a chance at scars like my Nana or at least some kind of survival. I would be diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer from the beginning, all that wasted film failing to see the lurking ghost-like cells growing inside. Today, my breasts are still a mystery to me each one inferring separate stories. They are no longer working in tandem as a team. The right one is filled with sclerotic cancer cells surrounded by pickled skin from radiation and an inverted nipple as the cancer pulls inward. The left breast signals what could have been – soft, supple, drooping with each year. Gravity equals health in this case and I look at it wistfully. Aging with these breasts is something I had taken for granted. So now my gaze shifts from my asymmetric breasts to other parts of my body that I never quite worried about before. Breast cancer cells now populate my bones and my liver – slowly growing and webbing their way inside of me. The mystery now is what my breast cancer will do next, where it will go, what toxic treatments will keep it at bay and for how long. I think a lot about the magic of my breasts, thankful for what has been and wishing for just a little bit more time with gravity.

“Tits up! Lift the ladies!” As a Pilates instructor, boobs are just another part of the anatomy to use to cue my clients.

It is Tuesday evening and I step out of the shower. I stare at my jawline and I wonder if the testosterone has begun to change my face shape, or whether it's just allowed me to love myself more. I wonder if I look like a boy; I always wonder if I look like a boy, and no matter how many people say I do or imply that I don't, I still can't arrive at a conclusion. When I dry my breasts I try to tuck them under my armpits. I grab around the nipple and pull to the side and push down on them with my forearms. I stare at my sternum and try to understand what I really look like; I try to see the body that will be there when my breasts are gone. I hold my breasts in my hands and wrap my fingers around their bases and imagine myself squeezing so hard that they pop right off. On Wednesday I text the boy I've been sleeping with and I thank him. He has taught me that I can be attractive without being a girl. He tells me he loves me, and I believe him. I wonder if I am the only one out there who stares in the mirror and does not recognize what they see. Am I the only one who thinks, "I am not my body?" I do not know who it is that stands before me in the mirror. I am a consciousness sat inside the head of a body that does not make sense. My body is a house, not yet a home; with some remodeling we will become one, but not yet. It is Thursday. I tell my dad that I'll be having gender-affirming chest reconstruction surgery in December. He asks, why don't you try to lose weight first? To get a taste of what it's like to have a smaller cup size? I think, can I lose so much weight that I can crawl out of my skin and leave behind my bones?

I’m in a utility closet, on a break from rehearsing a new Broadway musical, pumping my quickly expanding boobs. They feel hot and tight and they are easily twice, almost three times the size they once were. I’m on a union regulated 10 minute break and am scrambling to quickly attach all the parts to my volcanic tits. I can’t help but feel like Bessie the cow. I’m simultaneously trying to cram music in my head on this break, so I set the tempo of the pump and start practicing my music to the rhythm of the perfectly pulsing breast pump. The door to the closet flings open, and there before me, staring at my huge knockers, is my agent...who so casually says “Darling, I need you to sign this contract."

I stare at my reflection in the waist-long bathroom mirror, one hand cupping each ample breast, and then I squeeze them like two cantaloupes in the produce aisle. They’re definitely tender. I poke and prod some more. It’s early yet, only day 23 of my cycle, but I have a feeling. A woman’s instinct. After all, this will make a full year of trying. Lucky number twelve, I say aloud, even though I’m alone. I never imagined that luck would have anything to do with it or that getting pregnant would take time. The first four months of negative tests confused me. I even put in a desperate call to EPT’s help line and interrogated the custom service rep with questions like, If I drank a lot of water before testing, could that have diluted my urine and triggered a false negative? The answer was no. Everyone keeps telling me to just relax and that it will happen eventually. I’m not a fan of eventually. I prefer right now. There’s a hollowness inside of me, waiting to be occupied by life.